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La Galette des Rois:
La galette des rois
is a special cake, which is eaten
on 6th January to celebrate the feast of
Epiphany.
This is a holy festival honouring the three wise men,
who came from afar to visit the baby Jesus. A "fève" is
hidden in the galette before baking.
A fève is a charm and the lucky guest who gets
the fève is crowned ‘King’ and chooses his ‘Queen’ among
the other guests (or vice and versa). However
in some areas of France is it possible to find two
"fèves"
in one cake (in such cases the Queen and the King are
the people finding them).
This event usually takes place on the first Sunday in
January; however it can also be done on any day in
January!
This celebration is often used as an opportunity to get
together with colleagues, friends and family. It is not
uncommon to be invited to a galette des rois
several times during the month of January!
The traditional galette des rois is made of puff
pastry and almond paste (frangipane), but you can
also now find some alternative fillings such as apples or
pears.
The “fève” can come in all shapes and forms! It is
sometimes made of plastic but usually, it
is a small china figurine. It can be two- or three-dimensional, plain white
or colourful.
It is a tradition that the smallest child goes under the
table to choose – without cheating! – who should get
which slice!
Activities
1- Greetings & social convention.
Observe how greetings are done in France. What do you
think are the rules for saying hello?
Ask the children to observe the greetings and write it
down in your spy book.
Shaking hands
and kissing (on the cheek)!
These are ways in which to greet people!
Women kiss women, women kiss men, men kiss women
but men shake hands. Children kiss each other and
everyone else but boys may decide to shake hands with
other boys or just say "bonjour". In more formal
situations, everyone shake hands.
How many?!
The number of kisses changes depending on the individual
person and the region in France! It is usual for either
two, three or even four kisses to be exchanged!
What happens in the video?
Talk about it!
Does that happen in your students’ families?
It’s not just the French who kiss to greet!
2- The family relationships:
Show the vocabulary film and see how much the children
can remember.
Consider showing the film just once and giving
the students an specific amount of time in which to note
down as many words as they can.
Or what about playing a group memory game, where
you attempt, as a class, to say all the vocabulary words together
in the correct order?
Worksheet
1: who is who?
(
! this worksheet
may take a bit of time to load due its picture content.
Le cousin, la maman, la tante, le
père, l’oncle, le grand -père, la grand-mère, le cousin.
Decide whether or not you wish to discuss noun gender
here ; if the children are already aware of articles and
gender, you could use this to revise what they’ve
learned.
Otherwise, you may wish to use this activity as a point
of departure and encourage children to look for a
rule/pattern.
Other relevant vocabulary and sentences :
Cousine: cousin (for a girl).
Une couronne: a crown
(you could talk about other similar words in
English, such as ‘coronet’)
For more activities
You can find the recipe for the galette des rois
in French at:
http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l/fr/recettes/galette_rois_ill.html
Go to http://www.fevesdeclamecy.com/
for the site of a company that makes the special fèves!
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